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Shiawase no Pancake ~ Kichijoji

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Shiawase no Pancake & Kichijoji

Pancake has been popular food in Japan for quite some years now. As a result, you will easily see many pancake restaurants or cafe that sell pancakes only. Shiawase no Pancake (幸せのパンケーキ) is one of such restaurants that mainly sell pancakes.

Shiawase means “happy” in Japanese. So Shiawase no Pancake translates into A Happy Pancake. They have 27 stores, 26 stores in Japan and 1 store in Hong Kong. Shiawase no Pancake is famous for their special fluffy and moist texture pancake made without using flour.

The first restaurant opened in Omotesando and it opened in Kichijoji in 2016 as the 3rd store.

Kichijoji (吉祥寺) has been ranking one of top 3 most desirable places to live in Tokyo for many consecutive years now. It is not as popular to tourists as Shibuya or Shinjuku, you will hear tourists mentioning Kichijoji place here and there. It’s relatively small town with many trendy shops and restaurants. Furthermore, Inokashira Park is also one of the top reasons for its popularity among Japanese people and tourists.

Eating famous fluffy pancake at a famous place in Tokyo – a good reason to visit Shiawase no Pancake Kichijoji.

Detail Information

Here is the detail information of Shiawase no Pancake Kichijoji.

■ Hours
Weekdays: 10AM – 8PM (L.O. 7:15PM)
Weekends and Holidays: 10AM – 8:30PM (L.O. 7:40PM)

■ Address
301 Renga-kan Mall, 1 Chome-8-5 Kichijoji Honcho, Musashino, Tokyo 180-0004
It’s 2 minutes walk from Kichijoji Station North Exit. See the map below for the location.

■ Phone
042-221-2222 (no reservation by phone)

■ Reservation
They take reservation online here. (English available)
https://magia.tokyo/reserve/?lang=en
Kichijoji shop can be reserved on weekday and some part of business hours on Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays. You have to register an account to make reservation. Reservation site is also for other stores as well.

■ Official Website:
https://magia.tokyo/

Direction to the store (with pictures)

For this type of very trendy cafe/restaurant for sweets, I would expect it to be located in a trendy area. However, I was surprised when I first visited Shiawase no Pancake in Kichijoji. It was located on the 3rd floor of very old building. For those of you who might have difficult finding the store, I post some pictures to show how to get to the store.

First find Renga-kan Mall. It’s not exactly a mall you would expect. They have some clothing shops on the first floor. You can take stairs, escalator or elevator to the 3rd floor.

This is the stairway to go upstairs.

You can take elevator too. But it seems quite old elevator so it’s small and slow.

When you arrive at the 3rd floor, you will see Shiawase no Pancake at the end of the hallway. Many of the other stores on the same floor were closed even if it was during the day on weekday. Again, this wasn’t exactly what I imagined… But I proceeded anyway.

When I first arrived on the 3rd floor, it didn’t look like I would find a trendy sweet cafe on this floor among all the closed shops around.

I arrived at Shiawase no Pancake Kichijoji. I was expecting there would be a long line. But there was no line at all and I was seated right away. I was there at noon on Monday. Is it because it is Kichijoji? Or is pancake no longer famous? Anyway, I was happy that I didn’t have to wait in line.

You won’t miss the store because there is a large sign outside and you can see the inside of the store from outside.

What to expect inside the store

Kichijoji store has 48 seats. When I entered a store, I didn’t feel the store was big. There were enough people, but the store wasn’t packed. As you can imagine, 90% of customers were female. 🙂

Space near the entrance

You can see the entire kitchen from where you are seating. In Japan, you will often find restaurants where they let customers see their kitchen. I am always impressed how they keep it completely clean no matter how busy they are. The kitchen was also very clean here.

You can see the entire kitchen.

So the main part – FOOD!! I ordered my Shiawase no Pancake, the main menu. It is 1,100 yen (as of June 7th, 2019). Go to this page for other menu and their prices. Shiawase no Pancake Menu

Because of the special process of making pancake very fluffy and moist texture without using flour, it takes about 15 to 20 minutes to cook your pancake. So be prepared to be patient. If you are in a hurry, I wouldn’t go to this store.

Finally, I got my Shiawase no Pancake after waiting about 15 minutes. They were super fluffy as I expected. Not too sweet, just sweet enough with taste of butter and honey. If you haven’t tried, I would definitely recommend you to try!!

But if I had to wait in line for an hour and wait another 15 to 20 minutes after seated for this, I didn’t think it was worth it. Since I didn’t have to wait outside of the store, I was satisfied with the whole experience including the food.

If you are the same type of person who doesn’t like waiting in line to eat food, try going to Kichijoji store on weekday. It will be definitely shorter line, if at all, than popular areas like Shinjuku or Shibuya.

Can you tell these pancakes are fluffy from the picture?? They are super fluffy!!

Special Menu for Kichijoji Store

Other than shorter line, there is another reason why you should try Shiawase no Pancake Kichijoji. Classical Framboise Pancake (クラシカルフランボワーズパンケーキ) is a limited menu you can only eat at Shiawase no Pancake Kichijoji. Next time I go there, I would like to try one!

Have you been to any of Shiawase no Pancake? Or even the one in Kichijoji? How was your experience? Feel free to leave me any comment if you have any comments or questions! I would love to hear what your favorite menu was so I can try next time! 🙂

Enjoy pancake!

omoidehouse